Chandigarh: Man from Patna stakes claim on city, its colonies

Born in Patna, the towering Sharma runs a plywood business in Punjab and has of late been fashioning himself as a PIL activist, with over a dozen petitions in courts ranging from Supreme Court to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Meet Avinash Singh Sharma, the man from Patna who has set up Chandigarh ki Awaaz Party, and is all set to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Chandigarh, and throw up a challenge for mainstream candidates.
His vote-bank: The colonies. ‘’There are 62,400 housing board dwellings with around 2 lakh votes. My concentration is in Mauli Jagran, Vikasnagar, Dhanas, Maloya and all the colony areas because I have always fought for them,” he says.
Born in Patna, the towering Sharma runs a plywood business in Punjab and has of late been fashioning himself as a PIL activist, with over a dozen petitions in courts ranging from Supreme Court to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
‘’I have been waging legal battles on issues such as street vendors, the stalemate over garbage collection, and problems faced by residents of EWS units set up by the Chandigarh Housing Board,’’ says Sharma, who shot into the limelight after he staged several protests seeking higher compensation for the family of a child allegedly mauled to death by stray dogs in Sector 18 last year.
Ask him whether he will join or lend his support to any mainstream politician or party in the end, he says, ‘’No way. I feel when you join mainstream politics, you can’t give your views openly because then you are bound to toe the party line. Moreover, BJP and Congress are the same. These politicians treat public like a football.”
“I feel people should vote for someone who has remained with them, a local person. They should vote to elect an MP and not Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi because it is their MP who will work for them,” he says.
Sharma has already appointed his “warriors” who are going from colony to colony to tell people “to go for change now”. Meanwhile, he remains busy in organising public gatherings. Today, it was the turn of Sector 25.”
So who campaigns when he is in court? “My wife Simple Sharma and my son Aditya, a BA student,’’ he says, adding that he is confident of the support of people from the colonies. ‘’They know me,’’ he says, confidently.